Good to Know: Exterior Paint Colors

A few months ago, we did a Good to Know with some of our best advice for designing your home’s exterior. In that blog post, we talked about the fact that exteriors can be one of the most difficult parts of the home design process. There are so many different elements to coordinate, and getting everything to work well together, as well as with the environment around your house can be stressful. Keep in mind that this process is stressful for everyone, even designers! When I was choosing my exterior color scheme, I agonized over it for a long time, and kept changing my mind about the direction I wanted to go in. You can read more about that process here.

One of the things that we didn’t mention in our exterior design blog post were our favorite exterior paint colors. This is due to the fact that exterior paint colors can be really hard to get right. Unlike interior paint, where we have a list of “no-fail paint colors,” there are no “no fail” exterior paints. The paint colors listed below are colors that we have loved for other projects, but you need to make sure that they are right for your home before you paint. There might be a color that you absolutely love in pictures and on paper, but once it’s on your house, you’ll see that it’s not right for the space.

When you’re trying to decide on an exterior color, pick several that you like, and paint samples on multiple sides of your home. Consider how the samples look at different times of day, in different types of lighting. Also take into consideration how the colors that you have sampled work with the look and feel of the homes surrounding yours. If you really can’t decide on a paint color, we recommend painting a few exterior walls, or even half of the house to make sure that you’re happy with the color. Really, we just want to encourage you do the work to find a color that you’re 100% happy with, so that you don’t end up regretting your decision later.

When choosing a color scheme for your home, be mindful of how many elements need to be included in that color scheme. If your home has siding, work from the idea that the siding is the foundation of your color scheme. Choose that color first, and then add on. It’s certainly the simplest to choose a single paint color, but any number of color combinations can work well. If you want to use two main colors for your home, put the darker color closer to the ground. This anchors the home, and helps it to look more natural. Everything else on your home’s exterior, whether it’s trim, stonework, or a door color, should be added in colors that complement and elevate the main foundational color. If you want to add accents like shutters, make sure to add them in a neutral tone, so they can complement your whole color scheme.